Home
by Tuskface
Summary: One was inherently bad. The other good. But beneath that, they shared a similar disease, one which spread and built and now - who knows how a true love story ends? If you must ask, you will never know; if you know, you need only ask.
1. Everything About You

**A/N: **Felt inspired to write you some of this. I hope you like it.

**EDIT: **Returned and changed many things here.

**Disclaimer: **Credit where credit is due, Jo, my Queen, and to the beautiful bands for my inspiration and their lyrics.

Reviews are like Hermione's knitted elf-hats.

-Tuskface.

1: Everything About You

_Malfoy_

Draco Malfoy was avoiding thoughts of him.

It was difficult, but achievable. Nights were dark, like his cloak, like his mind; and this helped. But he couldn't be entirely sure whether or not he was trying to hide from himself, too.

He shifted from awake to asleep without any awareness.

_Potter_

Harry stood in the Room of Requirement, facing the open doors of the broken vanishing cabinet. The Prince's book sat before him. The Gryffindor felt sick to his bones, nausea roiling in his stomach as he stared intently at the Potions textbook. Fighting off tears, he dropped his gaze to his feet.

'I didn't mean to,' he mumbled; although who he was apologising to, he was firmly unsure about (although he had a nagging, horrible suspicion). 'I – I didn't know.'

Running a distressed hand through his hair and grabbing fistfuls of the black locks, Harry suddenly found himself slamming the cabinet door shut, and running the Room, from the pain. The corridors were empty, even though it was only just past seven in the evening. He guessed everyone would be eating. The noise of his shoes against the stone floor was magnified tenfold inside his head, where he felt the beginning of a raging headache. He spat the password at the Fat Lady, who managed to give him a most affronted look before she swung out of view, and he clambered into the Common Room. A couple of Second Years looked up at his entrance from a corner, where they sat with piles of homework. Ignoring them, he took refuge in his dormitory, which, thank heaven, was just as deserted as the rest of the school.

_(later)_

Harry was laying face-down on his bed.

'Harry?' Ron asked, pulling his friend's bed-curtains back a little.

The black-haired boy made a strangled sound into his pillow.

'Mate, you're gonna suffocate yourself,' the Weasley said, half joking and tugging the pillow out from under his best friend, who rolled over slightly. His green eyes looked almost absent, empty. Ron sobered up a little. 'What's wrong?'

'I - I just... I can't believe...' whispered Harry, swallowing and trailing off. He'd been successfully burying the panic down inside him all this time, but now it was beginning to show in the lines around his mouth and the trembling of his hands. 'How could... How could the Prince write something like that in there? It – it was all so – so _harmless_, and now – _now_ I - '

'Woah, hold on there a second.' Ron's freckled face looked confused as he perched on Harry's bed. The bespectacled Sixth Year sat up a little. 'You're not actually saying that you feel...guilty? I mean, sure it wasn't the nicest spell there is but, _Harry_! You absolutely _cannot_ be feeling guilty.'

Harry hesitated, licking his lips with nervous anticipation. For some strange reason his mouth had gone very dry. 'I - '

'No, Harry, just – what are you even thinking?' Ron stood up, eyes wide and mouth in an expression of incredulity. '_No_! Fine, you almost killed the slimy git – but think about it – Malfoy has been ruining your life since day one - hell, he broke your nose and left you for _dead_ in the train at the start of this year!'

Harry ignored his friend's exaggerated example.

'How about the time he called Hermione a – a – _you-know-what_ in Second Year? Or him trying to get us expelled the year before that?' Ron gestured wildly, ears going red with anger. 'He got you _and_ Fred _and_ George banned from Quidditch last year, and – and every other bloody time! Look, I'm not saying it right... But really, Harry, he deserved it! You – we – have _always_ hated him!'

The black-haired Gryffindor's face twisted. Everything Ron had said was true. He _did_ hate him. So why could he not shake the guilt that tore at him? He'd never felt like this before; even last year, when Voldemort had been utilising the connection between their minds, and he'd had those horrible, desperate urges to bite, to _tear_ -

'I _do_ hate him, Ron,' he said, voice dead and almost silent. The redhead heaved a sigh of relief, when Harry added, barely a whisper. 'But I still feel like – like I shouldn't have done it.'

_Malfoy_

Draco stood directly outside the tall wall, looking up at it with grim admiration. His skin seemed grey in the half-light, his eyes sunken. His fingers weren't quite as deft as before as he reached for the wand in his back pocket, assuring himself it was easily within reach. He began to pace. _Once, twice, thr -_

'Drake,' a simpering voice cooed. '_There_ you are.'

Pansy sidled up to him, pressing herself up against him and resting her head on his chest so as to look up at him with her pug-like bulging eyes. She fluttered her stumpy eyelashes at him and trailed a hand up his chest to rest over the beginnings of the white-yellow stubble on his jaw.

'Pansy,' Draco replied, stiffly.

'Where are you going, Drake? You said you had to speak to Snape.' Pansy's sharp eyes narrowed slightly and she slid her head up to lie on his shoulder.

'I am...aware of that. But I have business to attend to. And I told you to only call me Draco.' Some of the Slytherin's old sneer snuck back into his thin, pale lips, as he looked down on the girl. His jaw clenched and unclenched several times.

'Please, Draco, then. Come back to the dorms. Half the girls will be out tonight; we'll practically have the dormitory to ourselves.'

A look of disgust crossed his face. _Practically? _He took a carefully placed step back from Parkinson, and she stumbled forward, only just about managing to retain her balance. Never mind that, he thought, he would always do his utmost to steer well clear of the Sixth Year girls' dorms.

'For the last time, _no_. Now get out of here before I make you.' Draco was extremely thankful that his shaken psyche didn't come out in his voice, which was cold and hard.

Pansy hid the flash of anger that darted across her features with a pout. The blond boy resisted the urge to gag, while Pansy sniffed pathetically. 'Fine. I'll see you later, then, baby,' she simpered, before reaching up on her tiptoes to give him a wet peck on the cheek and leaving him alone once more.

Draco wiped his cheek with revulsion. He'd never wanted to be in the Room more than now.

_(later)_

_Why?_

_That single thought revolved around and around Draco's head, like a mosquito, constantly buzzing in the background. _

_The pain slashed through his mind again, the shock at the blood that was jettisoning itself out of his chest and arms. Now, lying in the cold light of the early morning, he lifted the hem of his school shirt just a little to watch the rising sun's watery rays reflect of the shiny scar tissue. A cold sweat worked its way up the back of the blond's neck. _

_He'd always taken it as a given that Potter would be wholly good, golden to the core. "_The Chosen One_". But this – this was different. He couldn't hate him for his fears, or his panicked actions. The malevolence in his tone - they shared a part of them, he knew it. He just wished it didn't have to be this particular trait. The blackness on their souls. A spreading, smoky stain that wound its way around your heart and lungs and pushed its horror deep into your mind. No, no other person knew that better than these two boys. _

_Draco was afraid. Afraid of failure, afraid of victory. Afraid of knowledge and of ignorance. Afraid of good, afraid of bad. These fears were a constant presence, decaying within him. He tried to keep records of them, the terrors that haunted his waking and sleeping self, but that by no means meant that they were diminished. _

_So how was it that all of his efforts, in the end, had been futile? He'd never forgotten the parallel universe in which they'd taken the other's hand, in the same way that he'd never really cared about its existence. But imagine that: imagine if _Saint Potter_ had been what was originally thought – a hundred times more powerful than the Dark Lord, and a Malfoy was exactly who he would have wanted to associate himself with. Draco regretted every bad decision, but he never longed. Not until now. He'd hidden the longing, the missing, in a dark recess far behind a front of hatred and sneers and bullying. Yeah, he had hated him. _

_So how come "_had_" was the operative word?_

Draco woke from his dream temporarily before drifting back into the world of pain and subconscious torture.


	2. Prayer of the Refugee

**A/N:**Hoping this will be better than the original (as I lost it due to the breakage of my computer).

**EDIT: **Major changes to this chapter.

**Disclaimer:**Joanne has unfortunately disregarded my polite letters for Harry to become my own, and therefore I cannot claim ownership of him, nor any other characters.

Reviews are floating, drugged-up chocolate cupcakes.

-Tuskface.

2: Prayer of the Refugee

_Potter_

The dot was taunting him. It stayed, stubborn and unmoving, its inky blackness enticing his eyes to stare at it until they watered. It had to move. It _always_ moved.

_Malfoy_

Darkness was all around. Not that Draco wasn't used to that, of course.

Even the emerald green of his bed hangings showed no colour. The world from here on his bed was in greyscale at this time. The deep breathing of his roommates were the only disturbance of the thick air, the air that weighed down on his shoulder, which seeped into every crevice of his mind like it was trying to break him down, bit by bit. Behind, in the background of sounds, was the constant low-pitched rock of the lake, like a whispered rushing of water behind the porthole windows of the Slytherin dormitories.

Draco lay, almost like a corpse, on his bed covers. He was fully clothed, with his wand by his right leg and his hair plastered to his pale forehead. It was hot in the room, but the blond shivered with an icy cold that was dripping through every inch of his body. He felt like he was being pulled down into the ground, through the bed, and the floor, and the solid bottom of the lake down, down, into the earth's core where the heat would burn him up, melt the ice which was closing scrabbling shards of fingers around his chest.

He had to get away from his demons.

He was at the door in silence before any other Sixth Year Slytherins had taken their next breath, and was in the Common Room not even a minute later, standing on the ornamental rug underneath the flickering chandelier. Sliding out into the labyrinthine dungeons, he slipped away into the cold candlelight.

Hopefully his demons wouldn't be following him.

_Potter_

_(earlier)_

The shoe was black and neatly polished. Every stitch was perfect, with a hint of brogue-style design on the toes. The heel was square, and purposefully so, with thin, manicured laces. Harry wasn't sure he'd ever examined such a shoe so carefully, especially not within such time restraints as this, in the dwindling moments before its sole descended onto his crumbling nose with a sickening _crunch_.

When the shoe had moved from his field of vision, and the pain had centred between his eyes, the Gryffindor squinted blearily up at the blond above him. It was funny how pain and immobility can improve one's sense of detail, he thought, as several things became clear to him.

Malfoy's sneer was there, of course, downturning his lips and pulling lines from the sides of his thin, (_un_broken) nose to the corners of his mouth. But it wasn't his customary one, his signature move. Because beneath it, there was a certain malice in his eyes, a madness in the steel grey that hadn't been there before; it slid in between the confidence, the superiority, giving them a look of someone who was already dead. _Draco Malfoy, the inferi_, he thought_._ Although, of course, Malfoy wasn't dead. No dead person could break someone's nose quite so efficiently.

The shoe was back. Harry could hear Malfoy's voice, drifting like the tide, somewhere in the distance, and felt the shooting pain up his arm as the Slytherin stepped on his fingers, before the _snick_ of the compartment door shutting. He closed his eyes, and let the blood trickle onto the floor in its hushed rivers.

_(now)_

The seventh floor corridor was deserted, as expected. The Fat Lady gave an impatient and tired, 'Who's there?' as she'd been swung open by plain air once again, but had returned to her slumber moments later, as Harry had snuck down to the balcony overlooking the biggest stairwell in the school, allowing him a view down to the Entrance Hall. No movement yet. He glanced at his watch under the invisibility cloak, tucking the Map under his arm to do so. In seven minutes the third and first floor staircases would change: the two o'clock shift. A few minutes spent locating the labelled spot on the Marauder's Map, and he set off.

The tapestry containing several Goblins endlessly counting gold grumbled as he pushed it aside and continued down a steep spiral staircase leading down to the second floor. Here, he moved into an empty classroom and out onto the West Wing. Ducking behind a suit of armour, Harry held his breath as he heard the distance cackles and swooping of Peeves, probably somewhere on the floor above, given the almighty bangs coming from the ceiling. Knowing that Filch would soon be on his way to attempt to capture the poltergeist, Harry waited behind a suit of armour until the castle quietened once more, in case the grouchy caretaker happened to pass by.

Despite the disturbance, the castle still seemed relatively quiet as the Gryffindor came to the top of the marble stairs which descended to the Entrance Hall.

_Malfoy_

Draco checked the Entrance Hall carefully before moving into the open, a warm glow reflected on the flagstones. The school seemed very still, like it had been frozen in this moment and he was the only thing still moving.

Pulling up the dark hood of his cloak, Draco turned down a small corridor leading around the other side of the Great Hall, avoiding the exposed marble staircase, and wound his way through a secret passage which took him past a small courtyard and lead him to the base of the South Tower. Slit-like windows provided a little moonlight, glowing on the edge of each step as he ascended into the night sky until, finally, he reached the trapdoor which lead up onto the battlements.

The blond still felt weak from his ordeal. He'd only been up and about for a few hours, and he was still shaky on his feet. He felt emaciated, hollow, like half his blood was still spilt on the bathroom floor.

Up in the open, in the midst of a cold westerly wind, Draco knelt by the edge, hands curled around the stone, fingertips hanging over an abyss leading into an ethereal world, an escape, anything. But no matter how much the ground – tens or hundreds of metres below him – called to him, tempting him to go to the beyond, that single step over the edge was both inches from the tips of his eyelashes and a million miles from where he could reach. Above him, the clouds converged before the stars, and the first few drops of rain began to fall.

With water pooling around his ankles, and trailing from the corners of his eyes, suddenly, the Slytherin felt like the tower's drop was much nearer than before.

_Potter_

The black-haired boy waited a few precious moments for the appearance of the dot in its human form, but no such luck befell him. Seating himself securely against the banister, he pulled the map out of his robes and began to scour the dungeons and Entrance Hall greedily. He always moved up the Marble Stairs to higher floors; and that was usually when the dot disappeared. Maybe he'd already slipped past Harry, though – a Disillusionment charm, perhaps. Or maybe he'd turned back.

No, Harry was wrong. He'd arrived at the unofficial rendezvous too late. The dot was speeding up the South Tower, and he was far behind. The Gryffindor gave chase as fast as he could go without exposing his ankles beneath the cloak. It wasn't until the trapdoor hung above his head, giving him an accusatory glare, that he realised he had no reason to be here. For once, Malfoy was still on the map. His dot hadn't disappeared. This wasn't where he'd been going for the past number of weeks. It was just…the South Tower. And now he was here, he couldn't just go back. Why was he even still pursuing him? Surely the last time had been enough to tell him he'd be better off taking a step back from this entire situation. But, rather, than listening to his better side, a part of Harry that had never really been active before suddenly kindled inside of him, and he moved forward silently.

There was a little puddle of water at the foot of the wooden ladder that had come in from the swirling rain outside. Harry slowly lifted himself up until his eyes poked over the rim of the battlement floor. There was no one there. Confused, he turned, and almost missed the dark shadow that was Draco Malfoy.

His hair had been darkened from the water, and his body was almost melded to the wall. It took Harry a good second before he noticed that the Slytherin wasn't on the safe side. He was sitting, legs over the abyss, palms slipping on the greasily wet stone, head tipped back to face the sky -

No time to fumble for his wand, Harry reached out and snatched Malfoy's fallen one from the ground with the intention of casting some levitation spell. But he was too slow. In a last ditch attempt, he lunged for the back of the boy's robes. But his fingers clasped clean air as with a whipping noise caught in the stormy wind, the blond's cloak flapped over the edge.

_Malfoy_

The rain and wind snatched at his face; cushioned his body. Eyelids closed against the pain, the fear, but heart full of the relief that only seconds could remain, surely. Mere seconds between him and painless afterlife.

But those seconds passed. Air continued to snag his skin and clothes, rain seeped into the robes and cloak, and yet there was no end – no great release.

_'Now, now, Draco; you know that won't do,'_ hissed a voice into his ear, seductive, repulsive. Draco felt like he was going to choke, like his lungs would stop working. His stomach compressed and he opened his mouth in a silent scream, nails gripping into the stone beneath him.

_Potter_

Impossibly, Malfoy was spread-eagled on the tower floor. Impossibly because not a second ago, he'd tumbled from Harry's sight into the drop that spelled certain death. And yet here was, lying before him.

The blond rolled over and promptly threw up, stomach heaving, his face hidden by dank hair. He grimaced and groaned, and Harry was abashed to find that, once again, the Slytherin was crying. His face twisted and contorted, and he slumped to the flagstones again, writhing blindly.

'I can do this!' he whimpered. '_I don't need your help_!'

Harry was frozen, rigid against the ladder. It was only when Malfoy managed to push himself up and look around fearfully that the Gryffindor realised the danger he was in and shakily began to lower himself back through the trapdoor.

The water at the foot of the ladder splashed as his foot slipped in it. Malfoy whirled towards the noise, and Harry had to move fast, get back down the stairs while holding the cloak tight to his body to keep himself hidden. He stumbled his way back to Gryffindor Tower. As he caught his breath, still invisible, around the corner from the portrait hole, Harry realised that he couldn't tell Hermione or Ron. Both had agreed that the last incident, although malicious, had been unintentional and reasonable, Hermione in particular reasoning that Malfoy had been about to use an Unforgiveable on the black-haired boy. However they'd also agreed that the Slytherin was more dangerous than ever and that Harry should stop following him at once (as well as telling him that although he'd been correct – the blond _was_ up to something both sinister and suspicious – Malfoy was still not worth Harry's time).

So now he was left to block out the rain and wind and the screams without their help.

Harry shut his eyes and covered his ears and willed these memories to leave and never return.

_Malfoy_

Draco was frozen, foot suspended halfway above one of the stairs at the top of the South Tower. The hammering of the rain was muffled by the thick, oaken trapdoor. But in the near silence, Draco had heard a breath.

It had been the Dark Lord who had saved him tonight – some complex magic that wouldn't let him simply bow out of his role. He resented Him more than anyone else. _This_? _This _was the punishment for his father's deeds? To have Draco take part in a suicide mission, no matter whether or not his part in it was successful?

Regular dripping marked the passage of time as his soaked hair and clothes released rain water. It must've been imagined, the breath; just remnants of the Dark Lord's contact with his mind. His left forearm still burnt where the Mark had writhed under the skin. It was a warped, sadistic creature which wound its way through his pores and muscle and sinew, into his blood and through his arteries, pulsing dark thoughts into his brain. Running a hand through his white-blond tresses, the Slytherin closed his eyes and tried to recall whose familiar voice the tenor of the breath had been. Not Crabbe, nor Goyle. Certainly not Zabini. Definitely a male – it was too deep to be even Millicent Bullstrode. So whose - ?

That was when Draco stopped his own breathing altogether. No. No, it couldn't have been. Surely he hadn't been here! Draco hadn't been tailed, he'd been extra careful…

The blond began to tear down the spiral stairs towards the ground floor, as he did so, reaching into the inside pocket of his robe. But his hand fumbled against the wet fabric, and he groped futilely in the elongated pocket.

Nothing.

No wand.

He skidded to a stop.

_Where the fuck was his wand._

_Potter_

The morning sun would soon rise; Harry could already hear the birds begin their first songs of the day. He sat, cross-legged on his four-poster bed, hangings shut securely around him, with his palms facing towards the dark ceiling. Soon the first pink-yellow rays would cross his vision. In his right palm rested a stick of wood, weighted so it balanced with the edge of its handle on the join between his middle finger and palm, in perfect equilibrium. In the left, a second, shorter stick, but with a longer handle, a firmer grip. It rested on the second knuckle of his index finger, hanging in the sleepy air.

Draco Malfoy's wand.

He placed both in parallel on the burgundy bed covers before him and dropped his head into his hands. Once, he would've woken Ron up, and together they'd have used every trick they'd ever been taught by Fred and George to blackmail Malfoy, or at least would've snapped it and giftwrapped the pieces for the Slytherin. But now, the guilt was back, eating away at Harry's innards, twisting and turning in his gut. He knew, somewhere inside his heart, that couldn't do anything like that anymore. Not after he'd tried to kill Malfoy.

And yes, that was what it was. Harry was in no doubt. He couldn't shakily blame the Prince, or question as to why that stupid curse had been in there in the first place. All he could do was sit, pained in the knowledge that that had been all him – Malfoy hadn't really baited him. What if he, Harry, had been in the same position? So low, that he'd been crying to _Moaning Myrtle_, for Merlin's sake. And then if Malfoy had walked in – of course he'd have done everything to get away, to hide the sobs and saltwater tears and anguish, anything and everything possible.

Suddenly, the Gryffindor was filled with a terrible longing for when things were easy – friends were friends, enemies were enemies. He had always been safe in the knowledge that he hated Malfoy and Voldemort and so many others; and that equally, he'd loved the Weasleys, Hermione, Luna, Neville and all of his other Gryffindors. Now, things weren't so easy. He'd thought he could trust people, and they'd just turned their back on him. And similarly, people he thought he'd hated after he'd finally got them back for what they'd done to him, suddenly were giving him cause to wish that he'd never been handed the opportunity for revenge. That he'd never yelled 'Sectumsempra!', that it was all just a horrible nightmare, and maybe if he pinched himself, then –

But...no. It wasn't a dream. This was the living hell he was in, and it was what he was going to have to endure. He felt like any semblance of control he'd had before was slipping from his grasp and he was tumbling, falling without any sense of direction, and that there was no hope of him ever regaining the stability of a good night's sleep.

At that very moment, as the boy with the black hair choked back a sob in his secluded bed, the watery, peach-coloured light of the sunrise sparkled in the morning sky, and he realised, covering his mouth, that everything he knew was being torn up at the roots, and that his green grass was on the other side of an impassable bridge.


	3. Over and Over

**A/N: **Chapter 3, ready to launch.

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Harry Potter yet, but maybe one day Jo will realise that she really ought to give the rights to me. Also, I unfortunately did not write any of the songs by which I was inspired, no matter how much I wish I did.

Reviews will save Draco from the fiendfyre.

-Tuskface.

3: Over and Over

_Malfoy_

Thankfully, that Friday dawned bright and warm. As Draco left the Common Room late that morning, then, most of the school was outside in the grounds, and he was given just enough freedom to sneak back towards the South Tower. The light cracking in through the thin archers' windows in the stairwell provided just enough brightness for him to search every crevice of the tower, but to no avail. The hawthorn wand was not to be found.

So, now the question was – did he actually hear a breath the night before? And if so, was it really who he had suspected?

Draco's side still stung from his freshly healed memories of Potter's spell.

_Potter_

Dumbledore's absences were frustrating. If there was one thing he had thought he could rely on, it had been the Headmaster's lessons. He'd thought maybe they'd be a little more often, now that he'd found the memory for the old wizard. But they were few and far between, not to mention irregular; this – coupled with Ron and Hermione's on-and-off friendship, and the fact that his mind was still trying to find a solution to the problem posed by the wand stuffed in a pair of socks and hidden under his pillow back in the dormitories – was leaving him drained and irritable.

As he stood, looking into the mirror in the deserted boys' bathroom, he caught his own gaze and held it. The emerald green, familiar at first glance, was still there, but upon closer inspection, it was different. The light and the love he'd felt for the first time in his life, the light that had finally glowed in his face a little, had faded. It barely even made a faint glow. He'd lost Sirius, the closest person to family he had left, and he had little hope of the same kind of friendly assurances his Godfather had once given him in any letters he might receive from Lupin. Now, he felt like the odd one out once again, left to sort out his own troubles, with Ron and Hermione more engaged in ignoring each other, or bickering than actually acknowledging his feverish anguish.

He rubbed over his face with tired hands, and when he looked up, her persuaded himself that the tracks on his cheeks were just residual water from his shower.

_(later)_

Harry was on the verge of giving the wand back.

Of just approaching Malfoy and handing it over.

But no matter how much he felt like it was the right thing, no matter how much guilt and exhaustion gnawed at him, the thing stopping him was that after six years of hatred, he just _couldn't_ give in like that. He couldn't just hand it back as if it all meant nothing.

Harry was halfway down the fourth floor corridor, the wand in his left hand, his own in his pocket. It was late evening of Friday. His mind spun, thinking as quickly as possible. He turned to the marble staircase at the centre of the school once again, and descended to the third then the second floor. Just as he turned to the gallery which walked over the Entrance Hall, providing a view of the doors into the Great Hall, he squeezed his eyes shut, trying to cut off the distractions of the castle and focus on the task at hand.

To give the wand back would be to admit that once again, he had seen Malfoy at his most vulnerable point. He'd enrage the Slytherin, and risk the same situation as before – only this time, he knew that he would be expelled for certain. Yet he couldn't just keep it forever. Eventually Malfoy would report it, and Harry would end up being found out. He chewed the inside of his cheek nervously. Hermione was really his best (and maybe even _only_) option. She had that kind of logical, straightforward way of thinking that would allow her to see a solution that was still eluding the green-eyed boy. But he'd told himself that he wouldn't burden his two closest friends with this...

Yet he'd heard somewhere that all promises were made to be broken.

_Malfoy_

The school was one person less deserted than Draco had accounted for.

And unfortunately, it was one particular person he'd hoped would be part of the masses.

Just as the Slytherin turned the corner on the second floor towards the marble stairs, he made this discovery, and not too quietly, either.

He barely had time to notice the black-haired Gryffindor, walking with his eyes closed, seemingly deep in concentration, before he'd already run into him. The collision knocked Potter to the floor, and flipped Draco over him, where he skidded on his back a good metre before smacking into the wall.

Groaning, Draco's eyelids flickered and he pushed himself up, rubbing the back of his head. He winced sharply as he felt the beginnings of a snitch-sized lump forming there. Nearby, he noticed Potter, looking up at him from where he lay on his chest, an expression of bewilderment and panic on his face. Avoiding his eyes, Draco made to make a quick get away, but his eyes were drawn by something lying inches from the Gryffindor's left hand.

The green eyes followed the grey, and there was a brief moment where neither boy moved. Then, suddenly, Potter reached for the wand at the same time that Draco lunged for it. The latter just missed out.

Glaring at the other, Draco righted himself and straightened his shirt, reaching out a single, dignified hand.

'You'll want to be giving me that back, Potter,' he said poisonously.

_Potter_

Any feelings Harry had contained at that moment simply melted away. He recognised that hand, and the gesture, and he felt his face go slack, the threat in Malfoy's tone completely weightless in his ears.

_(earlier)_

'I can help you there.'

Young Malfoy's voice was so different from the harsh tenor it is now, that at first Harry's memory jolted. He was sitting back in the compartment on his first ever journey from Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, with Ron's considerably shorter form opposite him, ears turning blotchy red as Malfoy insulted his family. But Harry's eyes were instead focused on that pale palm, open – it may have been offered maliciously, but it was a request, however dark, of friendship.

Harry finally saw the true pathways that had opened themselves to him that day. He saw a different present, in which he had not stuck by Ron, and in which Malfoy's name had not ever kindled thoughts of hatred and abhorrence, but rather...something altogether more companionable.

_(now)_

Without thinking, eyes glued to Malfoy's hand, but focused on another time entirely, Harry reached out and took it.

_Malfoy_

Potter took his hand. He took it. _Held _it.

Draco tore his fingers from the other boy's surprisingly firm grasp. There was a second where neither spoke to each other, Draco looking down the corridor, mainly under the pretence that he was checking for any peeping toms, but in reality he was avoiding the green-eyed gaze which had snapped to focus on his face.

Quickly and jerkily, Draco ducked down and tugged his wand from Potter's grip before pocketing it, snatching his bag off the floor and striding away awkwardly at a pace which was almost running.

_Potter_

Harry blinked several times, trying to dispel the look of fury in Malfoy's eyes which was imprinted on the backs of his eyelids.

What had come over him?

The dormitory was noisy, Ron and the others seated around his bed, competing as to who could stuff the most Nosebleed Nougats into his mouth and produce the biggest flow of blood. But Harry sat, staring at the glinting pile of discarded sweet wrappers, lost in deep thought.

'Here, Harry, your turn,' Seamus slurred, thrusting the box of treats into his lap and taking another swig of butterbeer.

Harry shook his head.

'Actually guys, I'm kind of tired. I think I'll just sleep.'

There were universal groans from his other housemates as they returned sluggishly to their own beds. Ron hastily cleared up the mess they'd made with a wave of his wand and patted his friend's shoulder. He knew how shitty Harry felt, especially with the prospect of the Quidditch match he'd be missing for his detention with Snape, and that it was now almost inevitable that Gryffindor would lose.

'See you in the morning, mate,' he said hastily, leaving the black-haired teenager at last to drift fully into a strange waking stupor, rather than the peaceful sleep the other four Gryffindors seemed to enjoy that night.


	4. Undisclosed Desires

**A/N: **Maybe I'll go back over earlier chapters and revise them. Maybe. Either way, here's Chapter Four for you.

**Disclaimer: **If I owned Harry Potter, then I think we can quite comfortably say that Drarry would be canon. Alas, it is Jo and not me. But I worship you, Jo. _Worship_. Also, I think music is worth a thousand words of inspiration.

Reviews will get Slughorn to hand over his most secret memory.

-Tuskface.

4: Undisclosed Desires

_Malfoy_

Draco was alone. It was a bright, sunny day – one of the first of the spring – and he was alone. The grounds seemed to swallow him up, like if he stayed too long, he could both forget and be forgotten. The Slytherin walked along the precarious edge of the great cliff upon which Hogwarts castle stood. His vision no longer swam like it would have years ago, and the dizzying height no longer caused the sweat to break out on his skin. Nothing could scare him anymore. He liked to think of himself as fearless, dauntless, a being devoid of emotion. No, not devoid, he corrected, more above. He was superior to such human weaknesses as fear. What was there to fear in a two hundred foot drop onto shards of rock as big as one of the Herbology greenhouses, when he had the constant sensation of a wand pressed into the back of his neck, the Killing Curse on his master's tongue?

He didn't like to think of the Dark Lord as his master. But, really, what other position did he hold in the Malfoy boy's life? By simply pointing a stick of wood at them, they became his puppets. His father would waltz with a Dementor that was what Voldemort requested. Draco loathed this. The proud Malfoy line, befouled by weakness and besmirched by his father's infidelity to the cause. By their _fear_.

The grass was bright and lush underneath the soles of Draco's shoes. The entire day was one that any other student would be spending with friends. It was a day that inspired nostalgia, a day that created moments that would last forever, preserved in the sunshine and blue skies, the scuttling white clouds and the gentle breeze. But Draco was alone.

His skin was unaccustomed to the light, his pupils tiny pinpricks of black among the silvery grey of his irises. He looked like he didn't belong out there. But he had to get away from the castle. His mission was failing. The necklace hadn't worked. He'd been suspected – of course, by Potter –

Potter.

That was one other problem. The prat knew too much, or at least alleged to. He'd been outside the Room of Requirement, Draco was sure of it. A few weeks previous to the creation of the scars which savaged his unhealthily pale chest and arms, someone had been pacing the same path as him, back and forth before the tapestry of the trolls opposite the door behind which he hid.

But then there were those stupid feelings. Feelings he didn't want to sense kindling within him. He felt like finally, Potter and himself were _even_. How ridiculous. Even? Even in what way, he always asked himself? And a cold, emotionless voice always responded: all the times you attacked him, he's made up for; you both know pain and darkness; you both have the black mark of death on your souls, the threat of kill or be killed; you are both toys to be used and destroyed by the two wizards truly fighting this war – the Dark Lord and Dumbledore. That voice was the bane of his life. It haunted his waking days, and marred his nightmares. Right at the pinnacles of the terror and pain of his dreams, there it was, convincing him that there was something there. Even. Balance. Similarity.

Now he was sweating. And it still had nothing to do with that two hundred foot drop.

_Potter_

Harry's green eyes were closed. He'd been alone in the dormitory since ten that morning, when he'd tried to go down to breakfast, and returned almost immediately, to the peace and comfort of his four-poster. Ron had come upstairs to comfort him, offering to fetch him some medicine from Madam Pomfrey, but he'd refused, and his red-headed friend had left him to the quiet of his solitude.

Yes, the Boy Who Lived was suffering from a hangover.

Badly.

It was stupid, really. Something had told him that he'd rather nurse this headache alone, without the aid of some concoction. He didn't want all of it to disappear. There was a reason he had this hangover, and he was determined to work out why. Of course, he knew he'd drunk copiously from the stash of firewhiskey Fred and George had given him over the summer hidden under his bed, but Harry didn't drink until he forgot. Unless he had something he didn't want to remember.

He had a strong feeling he knew what it was. But while he wanted to be sure, the same thing which made him finish that sixth bottle (even though he'd already thrown up into Neville's Mimbulus Mimbletonia, standing in the corner of the Sixth Year boys' shared dormitory) was telling him that there was a good reason that he'd woken up with a head-splitting headache.

_(later)_

Finally, the ringing in his ears disappeared. It was almost nightfall – almost. The sun was a finger's breadth from touching the horizon beyond the waters of the lake when Harry pulled himself out of bed and snuck into the grounds. Ron and Hermione were studying by the fire, but a crowd of Third Years were examining something on the noticeboard, and provided him with an excellent means of inconspicuous escape.

The air outside was the perfect remnants of a beautiful day; chilled, but with hints of the day's warmth, enough that he felt no need to run back for his cloak. The last rays of light had begun, as the sun dipped below the mountaintops, the trees of the forest thrown into silhouette and the castle's spindly turrets burnt in the fierce red fire of the setting star.

He descended the lawns to the lake's edge, where he lay down, just out of the reach of the silt and mud shores, head resting on the soft grass. From above, it would seem as though his eyes were mere holes in his face, their colour matching that of the grass stalks around him perfectly. He closed his eyes and let the evening's vivid colours bring him clarity of thought. For the first time in well over a year, he practiced Occlumency, clearing his thoughts. Then, when he felt empty, a black canvas, he let a trickle of consciousness fill him up, until a bright painting coloured his mind's eye. It was built up of his third firewhiskey, when he'd had to duck behind his bed's curtains to hide himself from Seamus' brief appearance in the dorm, of the pain that hit him right between the eyes the instant he had awoken that morning, of walking numbly to the Common Room the previous afternoon, of laying on the stone cold floor in the shadow of someone's green robes...

Of a cold hand in his own, and a flickering memory of the same hand open and waiting in the candlelight of his first ever night at Hogwarts, and then, in the bright centre of his masterpiece, grey eyes flecked with silver and slate, stormy and gilded. A sense of hatred, great difference and great similarity.

The Gryffindor's eyes snapped open, and struggled to focus on the stars that were slowly appearing in the swirling sky.

_Malfoy_

The blond looked down from his podium, a podium on the very edge of life. He'd sat there the entire afternoon, a mere speck in the shadow of Hogwarts, legs hanging over death that was the lake, torso supported by the life that was the cliff, and both compressed into a strange in-between that was his mission. He'd observed as day turned to dusk how the students had slowly returned to their places within the castle behind him, in pairs or small groups. And then he'd watched the exact opposite occur with a lone figure.

All of a sudden, Draco was no longer alone.

But he almost wished he was.

Without thinking, without really noticing what he was doing, Draco felt himself stand. He remained there, still as a statue, a lone figure, overlooking his empire. Hogwarts would be _his_. By the end of this year, when he had fulfilled the Dark Lord's mission to him, he would be the most respected student to ever grace the old castle's halls. The wizard who would finally defeat Dumbledore, do what Voldemort never did, what Grindelwald couldn't manage.

And all too soon, he was walking down the steep slope, slowly, purposefully.

The sun had dipped below the mountains, and all he could see was twilit shadows, but he soon found the small outcrop of flat rock in the still black waters and took his stance there, eyes fixed on the person lying on the grass, with the world above him. There was something powerful about his crucified position, the upturned palms tasting the night air, lips slightly parted, as if to swallow the beauty around him, eyes open, reflecting the galaxies, glasses fiery with the lights in Hogwarts' windows.

'You're going to lose, you know,' Draco rasped, voice cracking from lack of use that day. 'In the end. You'll lose.'

Potter didn't seem to blink as he replied. His voice was dead, simple, calculating, he didn't even seem surprised that the Slytherin had snuck up on him, as if he'd expected his presence.

'I've been told that before.'

There was a small pause, Potter's head falling to one side to look at Draco. They assessed each other, reading the other's words through interlocked gazes. When the blond pulled eyes away, the Gryffindor spoke again.

'Do you think I'm a fool, Malfoy? What do they say about me at your Death Eater tea parties?'

Draco returned his stare to Potter's. The boy's face wasn't petulant, but his eyes were slightly narrowed, as if this answer would define him.

'I don't know what you mean,' he said quietly. Outsmarted by the bloody moron. He locked his jaw and looked firmly away at the edges of the Forbidden Forest. Even so, he didn't miss the slow nod that Potter made, or the knowing look in his green eyes that said that he expected no more from Draco.

'You don't have to stick around like you have an obligation to or something,' he said eventually, finally turning his face from Draco to return to examining the sky.

Taking this as an invitation, Draco strode towards Potter and spat, 'You don't owe me anything, Potter, so quit acting like you have some kind of duty to me. I don't want your pity. A year from now, you'll lose, Potter. You'll lose everything. You're no match for the Dark Lord. He will always prevail. So live your life to the fullest, because you're not going to have much longer.'

And with that he stormed away, feeling worse for the disappointment that had marked the green-eyed boy's face.

_Potter_

Ron and Harry roared with laughter, along with most of the Gryffindor Common Room, wiping tears from their eyes. Even Hermione cracked an unwilling smile to the yells of 'Encore, encore!'

Lee Johnson and a couple others of Fred and George's old housemates had taken it as their responsibility to take over their roles. As it was, they stood on a table, one dressed as Snape the other as Dumbledore, acting out a quite hilarious scene involving much swishing of transfigured black and very greasy locks of hair and a ridiculous-looking beard and hair display in place of Lee's usual dreadlocks.

It had been a good night in Gryffindor Tower, once Harry had returned from the grounds. The mood was jolly, the spirits high, and somehow Ron had persuaded his friend of six years to join in the seemingly random festivities, despite his contemplative and distant mood. Harry supposed that's why he'd never have any closer friend than the redhead; who else could pull him out of one of his moments and return him safely to reality?

But later on, Harry came to realise that it was the other way around. Ron had taken Harry away from what was quickly becoming his reality and set him down in their old world, where Mrs Norris was their greatest threat, or attempting to comprehend why _anyone_ would name a three-headed dog "Fluffy". The nostalgia was something Harry would never truly turn his back on, but that was all it was now – fond memories. The time now was one of darkness, and Harry himself was changing. He wasn't the eleven year old who was starved in the cupboard underneath Vernon and Petunia Dursely's stairs. He wasn't the boy who sat on the Hogwarts Express towards his first year at magic school eating Chocolate Frogs and Cauldron Cakes. He was the Boy Who Lived, the Chosen One, whatever it was they were calling him nowadays. He's was Dumbledore's man, through and through.

And he was so much more complicated. Ron was still, well, Ron. And Hermione still spent all her time with her nose firmly in a book, or running upstairs with an exclamation of, "I have to go to the library!" But Harry... He'd never really had a quirk. He liked Quidditch. Maybe that was it. He hadn't "vanquished the Dark Lord", or whatever the wizarding world wanted from him now; he didn't get exceptional grades, or make hilarious comments his class could enjoy. What did he really do? He was the emotional one. The glue in their trio. Hermione and Ron's constant fighting, and he was the one who held them together. But at the same time, he was the one they supported. That was how he kept them, he guessed. By having to hold him up, they had no choice but to work with one another seamlessly, and that was how they stood. A team of two to support the broken boy.

But maybe three's a crowd.


	5. Liquid State

**A/N: **This chapter called to me the other day, and I've finalised the plot somewhat (i.e. the next two chapters). I do hope it lives up to expectations. I had to make major revisions to the time scale in order for this development to fit, so if things seem amiss, check back to make sure you're still in time with the updates I've made.

**Disclaimer: **Jo is my queen, and all things Harry Potter belong to her, not me. Music is really very good at making me want to write things, too.

Reviews are like butterbeer on a winter day.

-Tuskface.

5: Liquid State

_Potter_

'Harry?'

The soft voice turned the Gryffindor's head. He was back in the dorms. Again.

It was Tuesday. He'd managed to keep himself busy enough. But at night, Harry had been piecing it all together.

It had been less than a week. _Just six days_. Last Tuesday, he'd tried to kill his old enemy, Malfoy, in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. The Slytherin had been given leave from the Hospital Wing just two nights after the incident, on the Thursday morning. Then he'd seen him attempt to commit suicide, that very evening, and miraculously seen him saved. Friday. Friday had been when he'd inadvertently returned Malfoy's wand. And then came Saturday. Harry had gotten drunk. He'd thrown up in Neville's Mimbulus Mimbletonia. He'd spent the entirety of Sunday hungover on his bed. Until the evening, when his Slytherin rival had argued with him in the cool, twilit grounds of the school.

And now it was Monday evening, and there was a voice at the door of his dorms.

'Harry?' the voice asked again, gentle, sweet, and the sixteen year old boy in question spotted a familiar person looking at him with warm, brown eyes. Those two lights in the room asked all the questions she left unspoken: _Are you okay? What's happened? Can we talk?_

The black haired Gryffindor simply nodded his assent. Ginny came and sat on Ron's bed, opposite him. 'Ron and Hermione are downstairs. They wanted to know how you were doing.'

It was a statement of fact, but it disguised a question. The first question. _Are you okay?_

'They're doing homework. I'm...not.'

The redhead almost smiled.

Number two, now. _What's happened?_

'And why's that? You all have the same lessons right?'

The only Weasley daughter had a spark in her expression that said she knew much more than her casual conversation was letting on.

Harry shrugged.

'It's not due. So I'm not doing it.'

They both looked away, but Ginny's was the first gaze to return to Harry's face.

And, finally: Can we talk?

'I wanted to...talk to you, Harry.'

The older boy kept his eyes fixed on the dribble of wax running down the candle on his bedside table.

'Do you – do you remember...?' Ginny trailed off and bit her lip. Her voice had dropped to a whisper.

'Remember what?' he asked, finally letting himself drift back over to concentrate on his conversational partner once again.

It was at that moment, in between him truly focusing on her again and tearing himself from that candle, at that very second, that she leaned in and pressed her lips to his.

It was brief; really just a peck. Nothing magical, nothing extraordinary. She pulled back half slowly, half quickly, as if she wanted to make it casual, but the way her head was cocked to one side suggested that she was also searching his face for a reaction. Harry let out a breath.

'You don't.' Her voice was barely more than silence.

'Remember what?' he echoed himself, croakily.

Ginny was never the type to cry, and now was no exception. Any other girl would have crumbled, but Ginny Weasley, no, never – she pushed her shoulders back and looked him straight in the eye.

'Why?'

Harry only had one solution, although he allowed himself a good time to consider any possibilities. It was that first answer that he knew was correct and that he gave her, though.

'I was drunk.'

'How drunk?'

_Enough that I wouldn't regret it, but enough that I shouldn't have done it. _

'Six firewhiskeys. I – I had a lot on my mind. It wasn't you, it wasn't the party; that was just...a means to an end. I would've been getting drunk anyway. I think – I – I...'

She nodded, her hair falling in its own lopsided way around her cheek.

'Just – just do it again.'

Ginny looked shocked. 'What?' she asked stupidly.

'...do it again, please.'

She leaned in and touched his lips with hers again, only this time they closed their eyes and let the kiss move itself. The dragon in Harry's heart, the one which had grown an age ago, when Ginny and Dean were dating, the one which had curled up in dreams of touching her skin, feeling her hair in his fingertips, that very same dragon, was awake. But it wasn't like he'd have imagined.

It was clawing at him. Tearing him open. But he had no wounds; he wasn't bleeding for it. He felt perfectly calm. His heart beat was steady, even as the redhead's hitched and she pulled away. There was nothing there, and in that very second the dragon seemed very far away.

_Malfoy_

Pansy was irritating him again. Worse than that, Snape seemed to be following him at every possible opportunity – he'd gotten protective, and Draco knew that he didn't have any belief in the teenager's prowess. Draco's confidence had taken a slight knock, but it was a little bump in the right direction. The fact that Potter had managed to work out what was going on with the Slytherin so quickly (and without the help of the Mudblood and the blood traitor) had made Draco realise that the poisoned wine and the cursed necklace had been a mistake. Childish at the best. But he had only thrown them into the job to fool Snape. He wanted his victory to be even sweeter than it already would be. When he completed the Dark Lord's task even after the meddling Professor had told him all of Draco's 'follies', the blond knew it would be only him and his parents who would be laughing when he succeeded.

'Oi,' he grunted at Crabbe and Goyle, who lounged on a leather couch in front of one of the two Common Room fires, 'one of you. Get up. We're going to the Room again.'

'Pansy told us not to go anywhere with you. She said she wants you "_all to herself._"' Gregory Goyle snorted out a laugh, which quickly turned into a groan of pain as Draco languidly flicked his wand in the massive boy's direction. The fool clutched at the invisible iron fingers grappling with his throat.

'I guess you've volunteered yourself, then, Goyle,' Draco sneered with derision. Another twist of his wrist, and the chosen Slytherin stumbled ahead into the dungeon corridor, soon joined by his blond compatriot, even as the Common Room door slid back into its concealed place. Releasing his spell, Draco pushed the bigger boy's head back and tipped a small amount of Polyjuice potion down his neck, which was chokingly swallowed. A sharp prod in the middle of the back, and the transforming Goyle fell to his knees, facing from the steely-eyed boy standing over him. Time was slowly ticking away, and Draco wanted as long as possible in the Room of Requirement, so he kicked his friend up, and he tripped his way up the stairs into a small bathroom, in the form of a little first year girl. Inside a hidden compartment behind one of the sinks' mirror, was a collection of clothes to fit either Crabbe or Goyle's transformation size. After getting him changed quickly, the pair went upstairs to the seventh floor, and Draco gained entry to the Room, leaving Goyle glaring at him, holding a heavy set of copper scales.

The silence of the Room of Forgotten Things was welcome.

Trying to calm the shaking of his hands, the Slytherin wound his way through the familiar turrets of lost and hidden objects, finally finding the old drapery. With a tug and a cloud of dust, it fell about his feet, leaving just the old vanishing cabinet.

Or, more importantly, the old vanishing cabinet that was one of a pair. Yes, that was the vital component.

_Potter_

'So it was...like that?'

Harry's voice was tentative, but Ginny's smile genuine.

'Exactly; yes.' Her face was flushed, and she, unlike her bespectacled partner, was slightly out of breath.

Harry nodded, and looked away, out across the lake. The bark of the old willow tree was rough against his skin as he leaned back against it. The redhead leaned her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes contentedly. But the older boy was far from her state of bliss. Already, he could see a group of Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs sitting a small way away, and they were shispering and pointing, without a doubt. The gossip would spread very quickly: Ginny Weasley and Harry Potter! And although usually "the Chosen One" managed to effectively ignore the muttering that shadowed him in corridors, but he found the talk of "that Potter boy's dating his best friend's sister!" particularly irksome. In fact, more than just irksome. He didn't want rumours spread. He just... He didn't want to be in this whole situation at all. He didn't want to be in any kind of a relationship.

_Malfoy_

'...and did you hear that Potter's dating Weasley?' Pansy finished, taking another forkful of salad from Draco's untouched plate. The blond nearly choked on his pumpkin juice.

He'd been successfully ignoring the heavy-lidded girl obstinately sitting opposite him all lunch, tuning out her running commentary of the latest Hogwarts gossip. It was like having a walking talking, ugly copy of _Witch Weekly_ following him around everywhere. But now _this_!

'I'm sorry – _what_?' Draco spluttered, wiping his mouth with a napkin. 'Potter's – Potter and _Weasley_?' He raised an eyebrow, trying to regain his usually icy cool demeanour. Adding in a sardonic mutter, 'Didn't know he swung that way.'

The dark-haired girl gave him a doubtful look and then suddenly her face lit up with glee and she threw her head back, cackling loudly in a shower of high pitched giggles.

'No, no,' she replied between bouts of laughter. 'The _girl_, the _girl_ Weasley!'

_(later)_

Pansy lifted her dark head and bit her lip (which Draco guessed was supposed to be in a seductive way, although really it was more of a turn off than anything) as she looked up at the Slytherin boy's face. She placed one more kiss on his stomach and then buttoned up Draco's trousers and stood up from the wing-backed chair he sat in. He watched her.

Wasn't it said that lovers' eyes were drowsy, that they slept with the infatuation they held with their significant other? Well, there was no doubt that while Parkinson's black irises seemed slow and lethargic, the iron grey ones of Draco Malfoy were sharp as he followed the way her arms moved as she pulled her shirt back over her head.

'So...' she simpered, sitting on the arm of his chair and reaching out with her stubby fingers to push he shirt back down over the scars on his chest. Draco's eyes stared blankly at the deserted beds of the familiar Sixth Year boy's dorms. 'We're dating now?'

He took a deep breath, but just let it whistle out of his nose slowly, steadily, rather than rushing out a sigh. It wouldn't do to show her he was giving in. But was he really worth it?

Yes. Yes, he supposed he was.

'Yes. Yes, I suppose we are,' the Slytherin said.

_Potter_

His skin still tingled with the touch of another's, and his lips ached from bruising kisses. His pupils dilated, and the green of his irises was smouldering. Wasn't it said that lover's eyes were drowsy? Well, Harry's were so asleep with pleasure that he wasn't sure they'd ever wake again. But when you don't wake from your sleep, your eyes are hidden by your eyelids. And Harry's weren't going to do that. Not for many years.

The dark enveloped him in its soft touch.

_It's not quite as soft as their lips_, he thought contentedly.


	6. Iris

**A/N: **I hope I'm on time with this. Also that this will clear up a little of the mystery for you guys... The story unravels a little more. But at the same time, the ambiguity increases yet more; don't fear: all will be revealed in good time. Sorry for it being so short, and also for the minimal Draco and Harry moments; my heart couldn't take any more.

**Disclaimer: **Harry Potter and all of his fellows belong to the wonderful JK Rowling; I am just the puppeteer of her fantastical characters. Bands make good music to write to, too.

Reviews are Draco splitting up with Astoria and getting together with Harry.

-Tuskface.

6: Iris  
_- one year later -_

_Potter_

Ginny's room was small, but very bright, with views over the wedding marquee. Harry couldn't hold her gaze, the intensity of her eyes. It had always been like that – she'd always thought him to be enchantingly bashful around girls, ever since their first kiss just over a year ago. He was vaguely aware of the chatter downstairs from the rest of the Weasley family as they rushed about in last-minute preparation for both Bill and Fleur's union and his own birthday. But inside Ginny's room, all he was really concentrating was the buzz of the summer air in his ear, and the sound of trees in the light wind. It made him ache all over, especially in a place deep under the left side of his chest.

'So then I thought, I'd like you to have something to remember me by, you know, if you meet some Veela when you're off doing whatever you're doing.'

Harry did what came naturally and made a half-hearted joke, and his awkward smile afterwards didn't even come close to reaching his eyes.

'I think dating opportunities are going to be pretty thin o the ground, to be honest.'

And with a whisper of lip on lip, the redhead leaned closer and murmured in her most gentle, feeling voice, 'There's the silver lining I've been looking for.' Her mouth pressed to his, and it was as if she'd opened herself up, let him in on a secret, a secret only he would ever know – the true Ginny Weasley.

But even as the door slammed open, the pain was still there, with ever contraction of his heart. And inexplicably, Harry felt like crying. Not because Ginny had stepped away, nor because his best friend was staring at him, trying to hide the guilt written across his face, but because this wasn't enough to cure him. He needed a fix. Yes, this was Ginny's silver lining – but Harry wasn't even in the clouds.

_Malfoy_

Nothing in the world compared to kissing Harry Potter. Not anything Parkinson did to him during their relationship, nothing that ever conspired on late, lonely nights with Daphne Greengrass after hours back in Fifth Year. There was just something more – as if no matter how many times they touched lips, he was still missing something, as if he'd never really ever figured out Harry, as if there was more to know.

Now he guessed he'd never know what that elusive _something_ was.

He could remember every touch, every laboured breath. Rushed smells, the taste of Harry's skin, the sound of his glasses as they dropped to the floor. Blind hands and all-seeing eyes. All gone. All for nothing.

But at least in the midst of nothing, he still had his memories. The drive to never forget any of those brief seconds they'd had. To never let the green light of his eyes leave him.

He supposed somewhere, out there, Harry would be with Ginny. He'd heard the rumours, seen them out under the willow tree. For a while they'd been all the gossip, but soon enough people had come to realise that it was obvious. Who else would that famous Harry Potter end up with, other than the fiery redhead, sister of his best friend, girl he so heroically saved back in Second Year? Draco convinced himself it was right, all the explanations pointed to it – the reasoning was perfectly logical.

But all the while, he had to continuously make sure that the stolen moments with Harry, what felt like so long ago, were firmly in his memory only.

No dreams come true. He'd learnt that the hard way.

_(later)_

'Draco.'

It wasn't a summoning, it was a command.

He swallowed and turned. There stood his father, haggard. The cut on his forehead was still scabbing over, and rivulets of red stumbled their way across his skin. Obediently, he walked down the hallway to the darkened alcove of the doorway. As usual, Lucius Malfoy's grey eyes were as hard as granite. They were a number of shades more black that Draco's own, silvery irises, but they could still flash like lightning. Completely unreadable, were Draco's father's eyes.

'Closer,' he urged, his normally velvet tone cracking like rough sandpaper.

The young Slytherin's lids flickered as he struggled to not blink, his face inches from Lucius' prickly stubble. And then with a crack, he was pinned to the mahogany wall, his father's ebony cane pressed against his Adam's apple. There was a sickening crunch as the backhanded slap stung his cheek and brought tears to his eyes. His sob caught in his throat and hooked itself there, never making a sound. Lucius cried out and fell back.

There were a few moments where there was a sound like whispered poetry. Draco saw his father cradling his left hand with his right and murmuring an incantation. The bend, misshapen fingers righted themselves and the Malfoy stood taller. There was still blood on the knuckles and a purple-blue bruise was flowering across the tendons on the back on his hand, making the little white hairs on the skin show clearly. They weren't raised. That hadn't been an unusual experience.

Draco felt the gilt silver snake-head of the cane bite into his forehead, and push him back, exposing his neck.

'Did I, or did I not tell you?' hissed Lucius, looking coldly into his son's weeping eyes. It was all Draco could do not to struggle against Lucius' icy grip.

'Y – yes, father, but -'

And that was exactly when the door opened with a low complaint, and his mother rushed to touch her husband's shoulder.

'Lucius...' she breathed. 'No... You said...you _promised_...'

Her eyes flickered, anguished, from father to son.

'Narcissa, the Dark Lord -'

'I don't care what the Dark Lord said, that's our _son_. He's your _blood_!'

The man swallowed and turned back to Draco's stinging face. The young blond licked his split lip and closed his eyes, focusing on other memories, on a different time, with a different person...

'We can't do this, Lucius. Please.'

There was a small pause.

'You're right, Cissy. Of course you right.' The couple's son opened his eyes and saw his parents' embrace. Narcissa pulled free to kiss his uninjured cheek and gently mend the other.

'I...apologise, Draco,' Lucius said. But it didn't matter. It wasn't their fault really. But the fact was, Draco was beyond his mother's healing charms, and above his father's apologies. He was in love; in love with a love lost.


End file.
